Growing ambition

For the allotmenteer, this is a great time of year. Yes, I know that February in Blighty is colder than a well digger's ass and your self-esteem is probably down around your ankles after taking barely 5 weeks to grind the optimism of your New Year's resolutions into powdered guilt, but when you grow stuff, all that can be put aside. For allotmenteers, none of that humdrum, run-of-the-mill midwinter fake optimism matters. We have our own New Year and it starts right now. Our hogmanay is pregnant with promises as yet unfulfilled and it really will deliver. It's seed planting time and that means the whole gob-smacking cycle of mystery is starting afresh. And I just love it.

By now, you've probably got me pegged as some ruddy-faced extra from 'The Wicker Man', blithely singing my way through a few nonchalant human sacrifices on my way to an easy self-satisfied harvest. Not a bit of it. Being the chief decision-maker for a small scale agri-business like P28 is no stress-free breeze. Way before I get to worry about pesky molluscs and the vagaries of the British weather, I have to face the toughest of decisions as to what should be on the seed menu this year. And that's no seed-bed of roses. Do I stick to growing the things that we eat the most? Should I concentrate on nurturing the fruit and vegetables at which I and my soil have proved to be successful in the past? Or maybe I should have a go at raising produce that I would otherwise struggle to buy in the shops, even if their lack of popularity would seem to be a bit of a marketing own goal)? Given the amount of produce I give away, perhaps I should survey the neighbours to see if they favour beans or beetroot? So far, I've settled on a mixed strategy and I've tried to cover all of my bets. My 'lady sub-gardener' isn't so keen on broad beans, so only one row this year. Carrots are a bugger to grow, but we get through loads and I've ordered twice the amount of seed that I planted last time. Asparagus beds are the big new investment on P28 this spring; you've got to have patience though, because the first spear to be thrown into the pot won't be ready until April 2012. I have made one passing nod to the fashion of growing obscure examples (just to show off to dinner guests), and if you get invited round make sure you make appreciative noises about the purple carrots. They're even more of a bugger to grow than the regular orange ones, but they're purple and that's got to make them worth it.

If you've never planted a seed at this time of year and planned to be amazed at nature's perennial trick, then you really have missed out on something fundamentally important. The seeds we have at our disposal now, and the fantastic variety of hyper-productive plants and goodies they generate, are the result of 10,000 years of trial, error, luck, care and toil. Ever since the last Ice Age, our forbears have improved the seed stock and it is our most important shared legacy. The harvesting of that legacy has shaped most of our societies, religions, language and cultural festivals. Some sunday-suplement armchair observers may have you believe that 'growing your own' is a recent fad - a lifestyle choice, as they would put it. They're wrong. On a planet of growing food shortage that desperately needs some global TLC, planting seeds is not a personal choice. It's a moral responsibility. This is no disposable Jimmy Choo philosophy. This is a 10,000 year-old fashion that will last out the season. To plant is to be human. It's one of the reasons you're here.

Go on, give it a go. I promise you, it's easier than you'd think. You can impress your friends and neighbours and appear a la mode, as well as saving the planet. Wait till you get a load of my pink paisley broccoli, darling. It's soooo this year.